J

akarta-listed oil and gas company PT Benakat Petroleum Energy has appointed Wibowo Suseno Wirjawan, the brother of Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan, as its new president director.

The appointment was made at an extraordinary shareholders'€™ meeting on Wednesday, during which the company also renamed itself PT Benakat Integra.

Wibowo said the company would from now on focus on energy logistics. '€œWe need to explore what we have. The focus will be on support and logistics. Petroleum is no longer the priority,'€ the new president director said.

Benakat used to focus on the oil and gas sector, before acquiring a 37 percent stake in Jakarta-listed oil and gas services provider PT Elnusa in 2010 and 10.3 percent in petrochemical tanker company PT Buana Listya Tama a year later.

After a number of delays, the company recently acquired a 100 percent stake in mining infrastructure firm PT Astrindo Mahakarya Indonesia (AMI).

The extraordinary meeting also accepted the resignations of president director Muhammad Suluhuddin Noor and director Firlie Hanggodo Ganinduto.

Noor will remain in the company as a commissioner, along with two other new commissioners, Kanaka Puradiredja and Ricardo Gelael.

Noor said the changes were due to the company'€™s expansion. '€œWe are now not only an oil and gas company but we also have interests in coal, conveyors and infrastructure. That'€™s why we have [named the firm] Integra, for integrated,'€ Noor said.

'€œAs for me, I'€™ve been with the company a long time but while its focus was solely on oil. That'€™s why we looked for someone with the vision to develop the company. Pak [Wibowo Suseno] Wirjawan has experience, in both oil and coal,'€ Noor said.

The company, whose shares are traded on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) under the code BIPI, said last month that it had signed an agreement with Goldwater Indonesia Inc., a subsidiary of Singapore-listed Interra Resources Ltd. Under the agreement, Benakat will sell its 100 percent stake in PT Benakat Oil and PT Indelberg Indonesia to Goldwater in a deal worth US$78.5 million.

Prior to the deal, the company'€™s 99.96 percent-owned subsidiary, PT Benakat Mining, entered an agreement to sell its 27.43 percent stake in coal miner PT Java Mitra Sentosa to PT Aiwa Artha Sejahtera for Rp 412 billion.

Prior to selling Java Mitra Sentosa, Benakat also sold its 99.8 percent stake in energy services provider PT Benakat Patina for $105 million. The funds raised from the sale were used to support the acquisition of Astrindo, which was worth $600 million.

Benakat previously said it was considering selling its subsidiary, PT Nusa Energy Raya. Benakat holds a 79.97 percent stake in PT Nusa Energy Raya, which holds a license for manganese production on 1,015 hectares of land in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).

Finance director Michael Wong said the company was working to complete the transaction to divest its manganese assets.

'€œManganese is our old asset. We need to let it go and focus on AMI,'€ Michael said, adding that AMI would boost Benakat'€™s earnings by year-end.

Benakat completed the acquisition of AMI, whose clients include major coal miners PT Kaltim Prima Coal and PT Arutmin Indonesia, last June and has begun to see growing profits.